Are â€˜war-mongersâ€™ narrating the China-India story?

Recently, on the Chinese internet, there surfaced a thrilling account of a naval war scenario involving China and India. â€œIt was a vivid rendering of how Chinese navy vessels entered the Bay of Bengal and, in just a few days, destroyed the entire fleet of Indian warships,â€ recalls Prof Liu Jian of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), one of Chinaâ€™s most influential policy think tanks.

The narrative, it turned out, was a work of fiction, the product of a fevered imagination. And although such â€œcrazy storiesâ€ arenâ€™t representative of how most Chinese leaders and ordinary people perceive India, says Liu, it was a manifestation of the â€œantagonism and hostilityâ€ towards India that resonates among small sections of Chinese military circles and â€œextremely nationalist youthâ€.

A similar China-directed hawkish streak is discernible in the public discourse in India, points out Dr Jagannath Panda, research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. In recent times, there have been countless â€œalarmist narrativesâ€ about China in the media and among sections of the strategic think tank community, which offer no â€œconstructive insightâ€ on China, but only feed a â€œnationalistâ€ sentiment, he adds.

Recent manifestations of strains between the two giant trans-
Himalayan neighbours â€” over Chinaâ€™s denial of a visa to an Indian army general serving in Kashmir, and the reported presence of Chinese troops in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir â€” have accentuated the â€œtrust deficitâ€, endangered by the unresolved Sino-Indian border dispute, which led to the war of 1962. Prime minister Manmohan Singhâ€™s recent (off-the-record) comments about China seeking â€œa footholdâ€ in South Asia have disconcertingly escalated the war of words to the highest rung of the ladder of policymaking circles.

Is all this unchecked nationalist war-mongering rhetoric in the media and strategic think tank space now distorting the tone of the official narrative? Will such narratives harden public and official attitudes on both sides and make it harder to resolve long-pending disputes?

â€œMedia headlines shouldnâ€™t be allowed to make policy,â€ asserts former foreign secretary Salman Haidar, who served as Indiaâ€™s ambassador to China in the early 1990s, when the PV Narasimha Rao government formulated its Look East foreign policy. â€œOf course, we canâ€™t ignore the things that divide the two countries, but while some watchfulness may be warranted, we shouldnâ€™t get swayed by alarmist media reports or give them undue importance.â€

To the credit of policymakers and diplomats on both sides, Haidar sees Sino-Indian relations as â€œequable, despite the frictions and problemsâ€. War, he adds, is â€œinconceivableâ€ and there is a â€œbasic good sense and stabilityâ€ in the relationship.

Liu of CASS shares that sentiment, and points to a changing perception of India among Chinese leaders and scholars. â€œChinese leadersâ€™ attitudes and mindset towards India today are very reasonable: more reasonable than was the case with leaders in the Mao Zedong era,â€ he says. And even in the media discourse in China, â€œpositive coverageâ€ of India outweighs the negative reportage, he adds.

Dr Zhao Hong, a visiting Chinese scholar at the National University of Singaporeâ€™s East Asian Institute, too points out that Indian perceptions of China as reflected in official trade policies and the popular media discourse are â€œgenerally negative and suspiciousâ€, whereas Chinese public perceptions of India are â€œbenignâ€.

If thatâ€™s true, what accounts for what IDSA scholar Panda calls the â€œfragmented dialogueâ€ vis-a-vis China among the Indian strategic elite, including the government, the media and policy think tanks? He points to several reasons. â€œThe strategic community in India seems to be struggling between conceding and apprehending Chinaâ€™s rise,â€ he notes.

Additionally, difficulties in â€˜China-watchingâ€™ persist in India given that there arenâ€™t enough scholars on China and most students who learn Chinese opt for better-paying corporate careers rather than join the government, think tanks or the media. â€œThere is limited policy discourse in India about China, and the alarmist media narrative has confused Indiaâ€™s China policy at a broader level,â€ he adds.

Panda says â€œoutdated impressionsâ€ of Chinaâ€™s progress as a state can lead to â€œpoor policy formulationsâ€. As Linda Jakobson and Dean Knox, analysts at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, point out in a recent report, new â€œforeign policy actorsâ€ are emerging in China on the margins of the traditional power structure, and foreign governments must take into account these agencies that have a say in foreign policy decision.

Other scholars point to a more fundamental problem in the Sino-Indian discourse. Despite occasional incantations about a â€˜Chindiaâ€™ framework, â€œmutual mistrustâ€ between the two countries cannot easily be overcome so long as the relationship is driven only by a strategic elite community, without much grassroots-level people-to-people interaction, reasons Dr Renaud Egreteau, who heads the China-India project at the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Indicatively, he adds, the US-India relationship and the US-China relationship are influenced or â€œmellowedâ€ to an extent by the Indian and Chinese diaspora in the US, which act as lobbying groups. But China and India donâ€™t have similar deep civil society interactions. India is perhaps the only big country without a â€˜Chinatownâ€™ today: even the Chinese settlement in Kolkata was dispersed after the 1962 war.

Likewise, the Indian diaspora in China is fairly insubstantial; even student exchange programs are thin on the ground - although that will be addressed by human resource development minister Kapil Sabilâ€™s upcoming China visit, during which agreements on mutual recognition of degrees will be signed.

So, how can the tone of the Sino-Indian narrative be changed from hysterical â€˜war-mongeringâ€™ on both sides to finding the pragmatic balance of â€œcompetitive cooperationâ€? Haidar, the distinguished diplomat, recalls the counsel he received, ahead of his China ambassadorial appointment, from renowned political strategist PN Haksar.

â€œHe said that the border dispute and other political issues werenâ€™t going to disappear overnight and that the two sides could begin by understanding what their societies were about: how are they advancing, what are they doing to make better lives for themselves.â€ Perhaps, muses Haidar, thatâ€™s ultimately where the two countriesâ€™ peoples can relate to each other.

The trick, adds Egreteau, is not to have a â€œnaiveâ€ notion of friendly relations, but have a more â€œpragmaticâ€ discourse â€” having a dialogue, while recognising there are differences and disputes that can be discussed without derailing the entire process.

Day before Yesterday
Person 1: China is building enormous infrastruture on theis side of the border, we should do something.
Person 2: You are just too paranoid and nationalistic

Yesterday
Person 1: China is now openly laying claim to large swath of Indian territory and their troops violate our borders on a regular basis
Person 2: You are just too paranoid and nationalistic

Today
Person 1 : There are Chinese troops in PoK and China has even stepped up the rhetoric on Kashmir
Person 2 : You are too paranoid and nationalistic.

Tomorrow
Person 1 : The Chinese have opened up on us on several fronts, our poor infrasture and lack of preparation are severely hampering us.
Person 2 : See this is all your fault, I told you not to be too nationalistic. Now you have caused all this problem.

The baggage of 62 continues to be one of the policy drivers and I may say rightly so. India cannot trust China a bit till india itself becomes more powerful militarily and economically. Also the regular incursions into indian territory by the chinese puts india on the defensive. Add to that its diplomats on regular basis ranting about Tawang etc does no good to indian psyche at all vis a vis China. With china having grown this big, it now probably cannot grant any concessions on the border dispute with india as it will be a major embarrassment and loss of face internationally. India is sitting pretty in its defense no matter what people say regarding its preparations. So it suits india just fine to drag this dispute for another 10 years and put it out of reach of the chinese.

Chinese perceptions were never benign and that was evident in recent Poll results where on the contrary India was benign and Chinese were hating Indians more then ever. Chinese trolls are crawling everywhere and making stereotype comments about Indians more than usual racist westerners. To every hateful anti India Pakistani rant there is Chinese behind it and vise a verse. Urban Chinese are not able to digest their Prosperity and so called purchase power to buy more equipments lol. War mongering is another Chinese time pass at their recent exposure 'www'.

As far as this Article is concerned i am totally pissed off, actually before clicking to this article link i bet to myself that it is definitely of Indian origin. And guess what i won the bet. Only Indians are famous for doing introspect, feel guilt and ready to feed the beast outside. Only Indians are good story tellers of self criticism, making jokes about how corrupt Indians are (I mean a fictional % of fictional Indians but not themselves) .

This very article is reflecting the same where India's genuine concerns (which are not atypical to rest of the world;anxious about China) are placed on the same Platform with Chinese war mongering; bursting out from a inflated Chinese military might confidence.

Who is the aggressor, who is on the receiving end without provocation, who needs to be alarmed, who was attacked more times ever in Asia, who needs to learn from the history, who is been encircled by expansionist powers and who is doing military alliances are few questioned to be answered before declaring Indians as war mongers for no reason like Chinese.